Product Details

• Actors: Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham, Christine Baranski, Terence Stamp
• Directors: Frank Oz
• Writers: Steve Martin
• Producers: Brian Grazer
• Format: Widescreen, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Dubbed: French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: January 18, 2000
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (151 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000035Z3C
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,768 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Bowfinger" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Filmmakers often remark that it's just so hard to make a bad picture that few would take on the challenge if they weren't so naive. Steve Martin's Bobby Bowfinger is cut from that pattern, one of those sweet, indomitable operators of Hollywood who seem to be descended directly from Ed Wood (of Plan 9 from Outer Space infamy). To resurrect his ramshackle existence, Bowfinger opts to film his accountant's sci-fi spectacular, Chubby Rain, about aliens invading in raindrops. The snag is he needs to attach action megastar Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), an actor so paranoid he counts the K's in scripts to uncover possible Ku Klux Klan influences. When his effort fails, Bowfinger hits on an ingenious scheme to film Ramsey without his knowledge, throwing his actors at the hapless star whenever he appears in public. Only Kit begins to believe he's being hounded by aliens for real, and runs hysterically to his guru (Terence Stamp) at a Scientology-clone group called MindHead, where people walk around in fine suits wearing white pyramids on their heads. Deprived of his star, yet not to be undone, Bowfinger hires a look-alike, Jiff (also Eddie Murphy), to fill in. The tone of the picture is sometimes flat, rather than deadpan, but that's nitpicking. The farce is quick and engrossing, and populated with terrific performances, especially by Eddie Murphy, whose dual role as Kit and Jiff showcases his character-building gift, and by Martin, whose Bowfinger, part con man and part would-be visionary, manages to capture your sympathies. Heather Graham's would-be actress cheerfully sleeps her way to the top like she knows she's supposed to, and Christine Baranski plays her shopworn method actor with myopic self-absorption. --Jim Gay

Product Description

Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham. When a hack film producer fails to land Hollywood's hottest action star for the lead role in his new movie, he does the next best thing: lure the unwitting star through a series of bizarre chases and schemes while secretly filming his every move. 1999/color/97 min/PG-13/widescreen.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Non stop laughs December 22, 1999

By jeff adams

Format:DVD

This has got to be one of the fuuniest movies I have seen in a long time. I was laughing so hard that I was crying. My friend was the one who wanted to go see this movie. I was very very skeptical about his choice. I thought that this movie looked so stupid and I had no intentions of spending $6.50 to go and see it. But I was dead wrong. In fact I spent $6.50 two more times. The movie is about Bobby Bowfinger, who is played by Steve Martin, a movie producer that is going through some hard times when he thinks that his bad luck has come to an end, when he reads the script of a movie he thinks will be big. He wants a big time actor to star in the movie. So he offers the role to Kit Ramsey, played by Eddie Murphy. Kit turns him down, so Bowfinger decides to make him the star of the film without him knowing he is being filmed. Bowfinger also puts together a bunch of no name actors to be in the movie and interact with Kit Ramsey without Kit knowing that it is a movie. Thats all I'm going to say. So if you want to see a movie that is very funny and original then check out Bowfinger. I am very anxious for this movie to come out on dvd.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars underrated August 6, 2002

By Orrin C. Judd VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

What lifts this film up and makes it not just funny but great is that lurking behind the facade of a light-hearted slapstick about movie-making is a fairly devastating satire of Hollywood and its denizens.Ę So on the surface you've got Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin), B-movie producer/director, using his last $2000 to make the film, Chubby Rain, from a script by his earnest Muslim accountant.Ę Promised major studio backing if he can just secure the services of action-film superstar, Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), but realizing he's got no chance of doing so, Bowfinger decides to just surreptitiously include Kit in the movie.Ę This leads to some hilarious guerilla filmmaking, in which the other characters from Chubby Rain, to whom Bowfinger has not explained what's really going on, run up and interact with an increasingly bewildered and terrified Ramsey.Ę As we soon learn, Kit's frantic reaction to the dialogue and special effects of Bowfinger's invading-space-aliens film is exacerbated by some significant prior mental problems, which include an obsession with exposing himself to the Laker girls.

Also assisting in the production of the film are : a devious studio prop man, who steals everything from cars to cameras for Bowfinger; a seemingly fresh-scrubbed country girl, Daisy (Heather Graham); a serious, but bad, professional actress (Christine Baranski); Kit's twin, but excessively geeky, brother, Jiff (also played by Eddie Murphy);Ę a gaggle of illegal Mexicans, picked up at the border; and even Bowfinger's multi-talented dog.Ę All add to theĘ mayhem in their own ways.

But meanwhile, Kit turns out to be a member of a cult called Mind Head, led by Terrence Stamp in a funny turn, which bears an uncanny resemblance to Scientology.Ę Heather Graham's supposedly innocent character sleeps her way through the entire Bowfinger operation, whoring for more lines and a bigger role.Ę In the final scene of the movie she even turns up with a lesbian girlfriend, who just happens to be a major Hollywood player, summoning memories of Steve Martin's own relationship with a pre-Ellen Anne Heche.Ę And Graham's entire role appears to be an implicit critique of her own career which seems to be likewise based almost exclusively on her breasts.Ę Kit Ramsey's claims of racism in the industry are made fun of as he at one point adds up the "k's" in a movie script and divides by three to show his agent how often "KKK" appears.Ę Several other ostensibly good-natured bits that we can see on further examination have an edge to them include a scene where Bowfinger gets Jiff to run across a busy thruway by telling him that the cars are driven by stunt men, but which also shows how little he cares about the actor's safety, and a conversation where Jiff asks wonderingly why someone's willing to pay him just for looking like someone else, raises inevitable questions about an industry where mere physical appearance can mean millions.Ę In fact, the whole conceit of the story, that you could basically make a successful action flick without the big-salaried star knowing he'd been in the movie, and that everyone in the movie business is just using everyone else, is a pretty tough commentary on the current state of Hollywood.

This harsher undercurrent gives the movie a nasty, though subtle, edge that I really liked, but which some critics found off-putting.Ę Much of the potential tension is defused by Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy who give tremendous performances, Murphy in the seemingly tougher dual role, and Martin in the actually more difficult balancing act of making Bobby Bowfinger likable even as he cheats, lies to, and steals from everyone in sight.Ę The end result is a picture that works on two levels, one of mostly broad physical comedy, the other darker and more satirical.Ę Comedy is hard enough to get right, but to nail it above and below the surface is an exceedingly rare achievement; that it manages this unusual fate makes Bowfinger one of the best comedies of the '90s and vastly underrrated.

GRADE : A

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars damn funny..... August 21, 2007

By D. Pawl VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

I saw BOWFINGER in the movie theater and couldn't stop laughing my head off throughout the duration of the film. I happen to find Steve Martin's brand of humor quirky, witty and deliriously off the wall. This film is probably an example of his comedy at its best. Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin) is part con artist/part trashy film visionary. Yes, you could compare his calibre of genius to Ed Wood, who prided himself in making "the worst film of all time," the wonderfully campy PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE. Bowfinger's vision of CHUBBY RAIN, an alien film, is no different from the low budget B movies that Wood prided himself on churning out. In this case, Bowfinger is fixated on a certain movie star, Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), playing in the film. Since there is no chance of his ever agreeing to appear in it, Bowfinger's crew must film Kit without him knowing it, while the cast recites their lines at the unsuspecting (and rather paranoid) celebrity. What's more, Kit's "stand in" is played by a really geeky guy nothing remotely like the arrogant star (also played by Eddie Murphy).

Frank Oz brilliantly directed this over-the-top fantasy of celebritydom. The cast is terrrific, the concept is delightfully absurd, and Steve Martin truly had me wondering just what PLANET his character came from. This is one of those films that is great to watch when you are feeling down in the dumps and in need of some fast and furious humor.